Journal

Body Awareness Exercise Reflection

The body awareness exercise was where we sat or stood with our eyes closed while our partner went down a list of body parts and asked how each of them felt when thinking of an uncomfortable situation, then a comfortable situation. This allowed us to focus on exactly how our bodies felt. During the uncomfortable situation, I found that many of my muscles felt tight or cramped. As I went to focus back in on those cramped parts, I found that the parts were actually all my muscles limiting movement to my limbs. In the comfortable situation, the way my back and legs tightened up felt more energetic and ready for movement.

Devised Piece Containers Reflection

In our devised piece, a container we are working with is the commedia with the scripting. Our script feels like it’s really as good as it can get right now because of the mixing the two together. I thought commedia dell arte and its characters was really about being able to put a scene together with our bodies so well, we wouldn’t have to use our words. Now I understand that scripting with the commedia is very possible and has been done very well before, but I just feel like when the story is being told with words, there’s no place for the commedia characters and no point for them to be there at all. And, yes, I understand that the whole project is to help us develop as actors and to help us get better at devising, but I have seen some really good ideas get shot down only because we can’t change anything about the characters. The other part of this project is to make a piece that our group can be proud of, but I can see. I can see my group making a piece that we are ashamed of and its really killing the fun aspect for all of us

Implementing Commedia Dell Arte into Our Piece

The Commedia dell arte and its characters are very physical and movement oriented and we are putting them in a setting with dialogue and facial emotion. So far the process has been quite an adventure because the combination just doesn't seem to be working. My group has been busy trying to figure out the script while we haven't been able to work out the actual physical movements and attitudes of the characters.

The Devising Process - Our Status and some Reservations and Attractions

At this time in our process, we have our script finished and all of our props and are at the point of running it tirelessly. A reservation I have had about our piece is the dislike in general. None of us enjoy the piece and feel no connection to it. Our script is weak in content and has confusing time gaps that make the story lack good story line. Another reservation is the absence of the commedia physicality. the piece is really suffering without the constant physicality of the characters because it is seen in small doses and never kept up.

Stage Fighting Workshop

During 6th period on January 29, we worked with the stage fighting choreography Joe Bostick to learn how slap, punch and slam heads against a wall without ever hurting anybody. When stage fighting, you must retain a certain amount of control of your body while at the same time making it look like you are legitimately slapping someone across their face as hard as you can. While learning about this unique form of art, we were to move through each strike slowly to perfect the moves.

Stage Beauty Reflection

Stage Beauty, a film directed by Richard Eyre, follows the development of restoration theatre in England during the 17th century through two historical figures, Margaret Hughes and Edward Kynaston. The time period was enduring the change from Elizabethan theatre to restoration theatre. Restoration was the step closer to theatres we see in today’s society. The theatres were constructed upon abandoned tennis courts. There would be the stage with wings on both sides and doors towards the front of the stage. It was standing room only. The balcony was one hallway with gaps every few feet to see the stage.

The Rivals Performance - Discussion

In Theatre, We read The Rivals, a play by the playwright Richard Sheridan, and then we watched a production of it performed by Bristol Old Vic, an English theatre company. The elements of restoration theatre that I found interesting in the production were the way they had large open wings and doors leading off stage. the wings being mostly for set pieces. The piece of old Elizabethan theatre that I found very interesting and unnoticed until my teacher pointed it out to me... the stage was slightly raked! that means it was slanted towards the audience to see the actors, and is the origin of the terms "upstage" and "downstage"

The Rivals Character Description - Faulkland

My character's name is Faulkland. He is from the countryside outside the town of bath, England. He is deeply in love with Julia Melville, the cousin of Lydia languish

Comedy of Errors

In theatre class, we watched a production of William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company. While watching it, I saw so many different aspects that the actors added to their performance, like devising and simplistic set, props and costumes. The physicality of their performance matched the mood and energy of the production perfectly. All the actors seemed to have total understanding of the words they were speaking even though it was in old English and it was reflected clearly in all their movements. One of my favorite parts was how everyone in the production just had fun with it. They knew everything they had to do, so that made it much easier for them to make it loose and play with their character

September 26, 2016​My Theater Profile

My theater profile is an exercise that helps audit skills that you have and identifies your approaches to different projects. My skills are I am skilled at movement as well as analyzing movement and expressing emotion through movement. My approach is to first see how whatever I am listening to makes me feel. Sometimes I base the entire piece off that emotion, but sometimes i just play around with different choreography and see what fits with the music. Most of my pieces are based off freestyle and develop into full pieces. My experience is 7 years of multiple genres of dance including modern, African and hip hop. I have been acting for almost 8 years being most active in the past 5 years. Music, dance and theater are always on my mind.

October 25, 2016My Definition of Devised Theater

The way I would define devised theater is something that gives an audience a peek into your mind. The way you think and how you approach situations. It would not only be familiar to you and allow you to create a monster of your own design and, at the same time, make something that you are proud of, but it would also show the audience a completely new point of view that they had never seen before.

October 25, 2016How you Lead

Our group has 3 or 4 leaders who keep the ideas flowing and also discuss in a way so everybody is included. In past experiences, I have been told I am a leader, but I don't believe that is true. My group is very efficient in our work and different stages because we have so many leaders

October 25, 2016Journal on Group AgreementsOn October 11th, we came up with basic guidelines to hold in our group. We established that when we are devising and working in our group, we are present and centered. One of the ones that I think is very good and very important in this group work is the devising space is an isolated zone where we leave our baggage outside and just fully commit to the process. this means we separate ourselves from our personal problems and focus on the task at hand, but also we respect each others obligations.

October 11, 2016The Man of La Mancha

On Friday the 7th of October, We attended a production of Man of La Mancha at the fifth avenue theatre in Seattle. The show takes place during the Spanish Inquisition, following Miguel de Cervantes and him performing his play Don Quixote to the prison. so essentially it is a play within a play. Before the show even started, I was amazed. The set started out dark with a wall of a prison topped with barbed wire and bright search lights shining over. at the very downstage side of the stage, there was a fence that spanned the entire length and height of the stage. the set had a flight of movable stairs and a second flight that attached to the wall and had a raise able bridge that was where the guards and such came from. Underneath the stairs, there was scaffolding that the actors could climb. and scattered along the stage, there were boxes, a metal picnic table, steel drums and cages which were used for many different purposes, such as doors and cooking pots.

October 13, 2016Devising piece reflection #1

Today we decided to start our practice with just writing about nostalgia, our main theme, and we could write memories, narratives, poems, creative pieces, anything you wanted. I wrote a poem piece about how I miss innocence and simplicity in life and my memories of those things. It resonated with a lot of people in our group. One of our team, Spencer, had a great moment and idea. we started working on a moment where we start in reality and suddenly a person who comes to me with a problem triggers my nostalgia and i say my poem in the "nostalgia" world

This last week, we really moved out of outline phase and into our making moments and planning phase. Every class, before we do anything else, we do an exercise, whether it be centering, relaxation or acting. So far we have come up with some really great moments and pretty interesting themes. We started working on some set ideas and it is really developing. So a while back, we thought it might be cool for us to have one person trigger another persons nostalgia and just have it in a chain. Our set is something that will somewhat help that idea. we decided to make our set in the design of a bedroom, with different little scenes with objects that trigger different peoples nostalgia.

November 28, 2016​IB Example Portfolios

For class, we had to look at the examples of collaborative project portfolios for ideas for our collaborative projects. I looked at the one titled Insomnia. One of the things I saw was the actors making most noises with their bodies and mouths, but they had the real sound so the audience would know what it was. That might be something we could implement into our project

November 28, 2016Guided Work 6 and 711/4 weekThis week we focused on exercises and ways to generate ideas for our piece. we worked with some exercises by Stanislavsky, a theater theorist who worked with theory of memory of emotion. we worked with his exercise where we go around with our eyes closed and we describe a situation and we try to picture it and find out what emotions we feel.

November 28, 2016Guided Work 811/10 weekThis week we looked at what kind of structure our piece is. The way we set it up is we have a theme and not a story, except for some basic background. Our piece is The Domino, where one scene leads to another and the scene after that triggers the next one and so on until the end which ties it up.

November 28, 2016This Past Week

This last week we have been finalizing basically everything on our piece. We made the stage the way that we need it to be. we have been putting gels in the lights so we can get the same colors for each of our moments, a cool bluish white with a really nice back lighting. Each scene has been a bit more of a struggle to figure out because we have no set script or lines, so a lot of the piece has been improvised within a basic structure and that has been putting us way over time, so we need to get a more cement script down.

Weekly Entry 12/9

This week we tried to make each of our moments much more concise and understandable. One of our biggest problems has been the clarity of our piece and its been getting worse because we are trying to fix all these smaller problems that would help with making one part clearer, but then it either doesn't fit contextually within the piece or it makes five more problems that we have to fix. Gretchen has suggested other ideas to make each scene more full and have the moments make a lot more, but that would change a big part of structure of the piece and we would basically be starting over something we have been working on for two and a half months and pulling it together in three weeks.

Weekly Entry 12/18

So after realizing that almost all of our moments were very complicated and unclear, we decided to alter our plan. first, we took out all of the extemporaneous moment and dialogue and we started writting a script so we could nail down exactly what we wanted to say. And along with the script, we got rid of us coming in one at a time. now it is like a work party and they surprise me only to find out I'm leaving that day and all of us freeze when others are having their moment, which creates a really cool picture because there is so many more dynamics to the piece and to what we are doing.

Weekly Entry 1/9

So these past few weeks, we have been really working on solidifying all the new changes and the script. But the big problem is that we can't add any more than what we need, and the piece is looking amazing, absolutely better than our last rendition. Its just this piece has so much more potential that we won't be able to explore because the performance is in about a week and we are still working on all the necessary, important things that will provide the groundwork for everything we are trying to portray, which is nostalgia and how different situations and items provoke nostalgia for particular moments. We are so close... but we aren't there, which is where we need to be, and our group is thoughtful, specific and efficient and I have faith that we can get it done.

Directors Notebook - My Theater Experiences

Plays I have readAnatomy of Grey by Jim Leonard​Secret in the Wings by Mary ZimmermanTwelve Angry Jurors by Reginald RoseDeath by Design by Rob UrbinatiRomeo and Juliet by William ShakespeareThe Tempest by William ShakespeareThe Three Sisters by Anton ChekhovThe Rivals by Richard Brinsley SheridanDeath of a Salesman by Arthur MillerA Dolls House by Henrik IbsenMedea by EuripidesBarefoot in the Park by Neil SimonAlmost, Maine by John CarianiElephant Man by Bernard PomeranceThe Crucible by Arthur Miller